


It's not a real bar fight without family

by RABunzai



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aunty Nat, Awkwardness, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bar Room Brawl, Clint Needs a Hug, dad clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4635906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RABunzai/pseuds/RABunzai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having the Black Widow as an aunt can be confusing, embarrassing and awesome. Scenes from the life of Cooper Barton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's not a real bar fight without family

 

“Look, so, Aunt Nat and I are very good friends, and sometimes very good friends …” he gestures in mid air, clenching and unclenching his fists, as if physically trying to grasp the right words. Cooper watches on in silence. His dad tries again.

“Ok, so, I love your mum very, very much and she loves me-"

“Despite my better judgment!” Cooper hears his mother’s voice call from the kitchen. His dad just smiles, shakes his head and continues.

“She loves me too, but I also care about Aunt Nat a lot and sometimes when adults care about each other they like to…display affection…”

Cooper nods in understanding.

“Like when I hug Froggy.” Froggy was the duckling he had found out near the lake. Mum had let them keep him and Cooper had fed him greens and cleaned his feathers and dug small holes in the mud to fill with water to make puddles for Froggy to practice swimming. Now when Cooper went to visit him Froggy would crawl into his lap and pluck the grass from his hand and let Cooper stroke his feathers.

“…yeah…sort of like that….”

The sound of laughter interrupts his father’s speech. Copper turns to see his mum and Aunt Nat walk out from the kitchen. His mum is laughing hard, wiping away tears from her eyes and Aunty Nat is smiling at his dad.

“You two could actually be helping instead of laughing!” His dad scowls at them but he doesn’t look too mad.

“No, you’re doing a fine job. Continue your parenting.” Aunt Nat leans against the door frame and makes a gesture with her hand. His mum bursts out in another round of giggles.

His Dad growls a little and runs a hand over his face, shuffling his position on the couch again.

“Look Coop…just…don’t kiss Froggy.”

Another round of laughter erupts and Cooper’s not really sure what they find funny.

“Ok,” he agrees, because adults can be weird.

 

…

 

That conversation will hold the title as the most uncomfortable he’s ever seen his father until two weeks after his sixteenth birthday.

He and his friends are digging around the attic, looking among the boxes of junk for an arrow that shoots silly putty.

They’ve been at it for almost twenty minutes when his friend Jon makes the discovery. “Oh my God…guys over here, I just found something!” Jon waves them both over to a shelf in the corner. Cooper looks up from rummaging through a box of his old baby clothes to see what all the excitement is about.

“Check this out!” Jon holds up a photograph and Cooper almost chokes on his tongue.

“Wow she’s hot, who is that?” Andrew looks to Cooper and he’s trying to look away from the photo but he just can’t. Oh God why.

 

It’s his Aunty Nat, dressed in not much at all lying on a white rug and looking rather seductively at the camera.

“Put them back, put them back!” Cooper hisses and tries to grab the photo from Jon’s hand.

“Are you kidding me, look there’s more,” Jon takes a few more photos out of the box and Cooper goes as white as a sheet.

“Boys is everything okay up there?” He hears his dad call from below and then footsteps begin to ascend the stairs.

“Hide it!” He cries at Jon who shoves the offending pictures down his jacket just before his father walks into view.

 

“Everything okay up here?” His dad eyes them suspiciously; looking between the three boys with what Cooper likes to call his ‘work stare’.

“Yes Mr Barton…just looking for some old trading cards.” Andrew cuts in before Cooper can say anything.

It doesn’t matter though; his dad has always been able to tell when something is off. Cooper has never been able to keep anything from him, if only he could start now.

 

“Hand it over…” His dad is using his authoritative voice and he can be really scary when he wants to be. Cooper sighs and nudges Jon who takes a step forward and hands the photos over to his dad.

“We just found them Mr Barton, we weren’t, you know, doing anything…” Jon tries to plead their case but it just makes Cooper want to hide even more.

 

His dad looks at the pictures and screws up his face.

“Coop…we need to talk.” Oh God.

 

When Jon and Andrew have been sent home, his dad sits him down at the kitchen table.

“Now I know Aunt Nat isn’t really your aunt but that doesn’t make this okay.”

“Dad, please stop.”

“She’s a very attractive woman, but trust me when I say you should not be thinking of her in that way.”

“Oh God Dad please, please stop.” Cooper tries to close his eyes but all he can see is that photo and he’s never going to be able to look Aunt Nat in the face again. How has he not noticed until now, he definitely wont be looking at her face, maybe a little bit lower…Oh God.

 

That year will hold the title for the most awkward Christmas, where he swears Aunt Nat is the world’s worst troll, but he does eventually manage to look her in the eyes again.

…

 

Life continues as normal as it can when your dad is a superhero, well, until Cooper’s first year of college. He had wanted to become the next Hawkeye, Dad was getting a little bit slow in his old age, but Mum had made him promise to get an education first to have something behind him, should the superhero business not work out.

So this is sort of how he ended up in a phone booth in Bed-Stuy, his friend Jon lying unconscious at his feet, studying the bracelet Aunt Nat had given him for his seventeenth birthday.

It was made of the same stuff that Uncle Tony used for his suits and had a small hourglass engraved on the front. Aunt Nat still sometimes wore the cheap little arrow Cooper had gotten her for Christmas almost ten years ago and she smiled as she presented him with the bracelet, saying they now had a matching set.

She had told him later, out of earshot of his father, that there was a number on the back of the bracelet and if he ever got in trouble and felt like he couldn’t call anyone, he should call this number.

Cooper wasn’t sure if she meant life and death trouble or I’m down five thousand dollars with the Russian mob trouble but at the moment the latter felt a lot like the former. He couldn’t call his parents; they would never let him live off campus again after this. He could call Uncle Tony, he’d probably lend Cooper the money but then Dad hated owing Uncle Tony. And Captain Rogers…he thinks disappointing Captain Rogers was counted as an act of war against America nowadays. So that really left just Aunt Nat…. He glanced down at the prone body of his friend; Jon was starting to drool on Cooper’s shoes. Yep, life and death.

 

He dialed the number and heard it pick up on the third ring.

“Cooper? Are you okay? Is your Mum and Dad okay?” Aunt Nat answered, sounding out of breath.

“Oh Yeah, they’re fine, I’m sort of fine…” Cooper heard the wind rush through the receiver, a slight grunt and the sound of a body hitting the floor, “Is this a bad time, should I call back?”

“No, it’s all good.” Yes those were definitely gunshots. “Ok, hang on for a minute Cooper, don’t hang up!” Copper nodded despite how useless that gesture was. The next thirty seconds were full of gunshots, an explosion or two and a lot of swearing in a language Cooper couldn’t understand… finally everything went quiet.

“Aunt Nat, are you okay?” _Please don’t make me call dad and say I distracted you and now you’re dead…_

“All good. Just a minor scuffle, they won’t be trying that again anytime soon.”

“Uh, Ok.”

“So what’s wrong?” Aunt Nat’s voice grew concerned. He could practically see her, phone between her shoulder and ear, blowing a stray hair from her face whilst something blows up in the background. His aunt was so awesome.

“…Uh, so I know you said to only use this number for emergencies, but I feel like this could become one you know, and I know Dad says I need to fight my own battles but he also says I can’t just use arrows to fix everything….”

“Cooper.”

“Yes?”

“Breathe and tell me what’s wrong.” Cooper took a deep breath.

“So I may owe five thousand dollars to the Russian mafia and if I don’t pay by tomorrow morning they’re going to break all my fingers,” he looked down at his friend who looked like he was starting to come around. “And Jon’s fingers, but he doesn’t need to use a bow so that’s not important.”

 

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone and then what could have been a sigh or a heavy breath.

“Don’t let anyone say you don’t take after your father. Stay where you are. I’m….maybe four hours out. Go find a diner, have a coffee and stay out of trouble until then.”

“Thank you Aunt Nat-”

“Stay. Out. Of. Trouble.” She reiterated in an eerie approximation of his dad’s authoritative voice.

“I will be trouble free.” Cooper agrees just before the phone goes dead….He hadn’t even told her where he was but he got the feeling she probably already knew. He glanced at his bracelet…yeah she definitely knew where has was.

 

Aunt Nat finds him four hours later in a tiny diner on his third round of pie. She didn’t look like she’d been in the middle of a firefight, she wasn’t even wearing her uniform, just a pair of jeans and sweater he thinks may have been his Dad’s at one point.

“If I was you, I would be having some serious Game of Thrones thoughts about your aunt.” Jon whispers from beside him and Cooper has to kick him under the table. Jon had a weird infatuation with his aunt ever since that day in the attic, it was disconcerting...

“Boys.” Aunt Nat pulls up the chair beside him and smiles.

“Marry me,” Jon gasps out and this time Cooper kicks him a little harder than necessary.

“Do we need him?” Aunt Nat asks, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow in Jon’s direction. Cooper shakes his head. He’d really just wanted him to stay to make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt from his blow to the head but if he was going to make this difficult then he could go. And it looked like he was going to make this difficult.

 

After sending a protesting Jon away, she buys him a coffee and waits for him to begin. He tears up his napkin for a little bit before deciding the best place to start from was the beginning.

“So, it turns out living off campus can be kind of expensive, and I didn’t want to ask Dad for the money because he was on about getting a proper job stocking shelves or something, but Jon had a better idea to earn some cash at a few of the local pool joints…”

“You were hustling?” His aunt looks amused.

“Well, not really, or maybe yes. Yes we were. Jon and I would go to a place and play a few rounds; I’d pretend to be terrible and set myself up as an easy target. Usually some drunk would take the bait and we could score anywhere between $200-$500 a night.”

His aunt nods, obviously familiar with the con. “And how did it go wrong?”

 

“Well, there’s a place down on Main, lots of big drunk Russian’s with tons of cash. It was just so easy you know and they always wanted double or nothing and I was clearing a few hundred in an hour. It was going fine until this one guy comes in and puts down two and half grand. I make it close you know, so I don’t spook him and then he says double or nothing. Five grand, how could I not? But… I don’t know,” he runs a hand across his brow in frustration, “I missed. But I don’t miss, he must have cheated.” He can still see the shot, it should have gone in!

“Wait, how many times did you work the place?”

Cooper winces, because she’s not going to like this. “Four…maybe five times…in the same month.” And now she looks way more annoyed at the fact that he’d been stupid enough to go back to the same place more than twice…

“Like I said, you take after your father.” Aunt Nat’s disappointed face almost rivals Captain Rogers. Almost.

“Please Aunt Nat, when I told him I didn’t have the money he hit Jon with a pool cue and told me I had until tomorrow morning or he was going to break my fingers…. I need my fingers, I can’t be an Avenger without my fingers!” He curls said fingers close to his chest, as if that would keep them safe.

Aunt Nat rolls her eyes and checks the clock on the wall.

“A place on Main?” she says, sliding a few bills on the counter.

 

It doesn’t take them long to find it. The goons at the door just laugh at him but Aunt Nat says a few words in Russian and they let them in.

 

She pauses for a moment in the doorway before her eyes find a grizzled looking man smoking a cigar in the corner, writing diligently in a little blue book.

“Bingo” she whispers, and tugs on Cooper’s jacket to get him to follow.

 

She slides in to the chair on the man’s left and leaves Cooper standing behind her, watching her back.

“Try outs for the dancing girls are on Thursday,” the old Russian says, without looking up from his book.

“I’m not here to dance.” Aunt Nat lets her Russian accent bleed out a little. The old guy looks up at her and then spares a glance at Cooper. He shuts his book.

 

They start speaking in rapid Russian and Cooper doesn’t understand any of it but nods along like he does. _Something, something, something…Black Widow_ , and wow, the old guy’s eyes go wide.

There’s some more rapid Russian, followed by a short and clipped _nyet_ from the old guy. Aunt Nat does not look happy.

 

“Cooper, please get me a drink. Vodka, straight. Don’t come back without it.” This is a very odd time to order a drink but he knows better than to ask questions. Cooper turns around and comes face to face with three burly men.

 

“Umm, Aunt Nat…” She looks over her shoulder to see the three men. She says something again to the old guy and he raises a hand, motioning for the goons to let Cooper leave. He pauses for a moment, because really, he is his father’s son.

“Go, I could really use that drink.” Aunt Nat waves him off and Cooper sighs and walks to the bar.

 

As he expects, he’s no sooner placed the drink order than it all goes to hell.

There’s a grunt from old Russian guy and Aunt Nat flips backwards in her chair, taking out the legs of the goon behind her. She’s on her feet in a flash and breaking goon #2’s arm on goon #3’s head while kicking goon #1 as he tries to climb up off the ground.

There’s a strangled yell from the old guy and another half dozen men plow through the back of the bar, running past Cooper to join the fight.

 

The bartender puts the glass of vodka down in front of Cooper and raises an eyebrow. Cooper watches the mass of bodies, somehow Aunt Nat has a hold of a pool cue and, yep, that’s going to leave a mark. Another three men run through the door and the sound of Billy Ray on the jukebox is drowned out with breaking bones and screaming.

“Can you look after this for a moment?” Cooper asks the bartender and then takes a running leap into the mass of bodies.

 

Twenty minutes later he sits on the stool at the bar, holding a pack of peas to his now swelling cheek. Aunt Nat grins through her split lip and pours a little of her vodka into an unbroken shot glass. She slides it down the bar to where they’ve propped old guy Russia up in a chair.

“So it’s agreed. You leave my friend's fingers here alone and I won’t break all your friends fingers.” She gestures to the dozen men lying sprawled on the floor. Cooper doesn’t think anyone is dead, just in various stages of unconsciousness.

Old Guy Russia says something Russian that he’s going to guess is not pleasant but salutes and downs the shot. Aunt Nat grins and does the same. Cooper just wants to go home.

 

Aunt Nat helps him back to his apartment and fetches another pack of veggies from the freezer, shoving it in his hand. He winces when he places it against his bruised cheek again. She totally grins.

“Keep that on a little while longer. I’ll call to check on you tomorrow but for now I should get back, Steve’s probably throwing a hissy fit that I borrowed the jet.” She removes the cold pack to kiss him on his bruised cheek and taps his bracelet. “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving….and Cooper.” She stops at the door and flashes him a smile over her shoulder. “Call anytime.”

 

Damn he wants to be an Avenger.


End file.
